Hi, I'm Matt. I'm a freelance Cameraman based near Brighton in the sometimes sunny South East of England and this is my blog.
It's going through a minor re-vamp at the mo, so bear with me..
This blog consists of work related posts, non-work related posts and posts that have very little relevance to anything...ever. Enjoy.

Yep it's that time again, the time when you've had or are having lunch, and demotivation takes over (except for the saddos that work through their lunch break!!), you start checking out MySpace, Facebook, writing in your blog. The odd stifled burp reminds you that you eat far too much MaccyD's, but at least you have a guilt reducing bottle of Evian on your desk rather than the death ridden Coke, that adorned it this morning.

Fortunatly you have your laptop set up on your desk as well as your main work computer so that you can check twice as much email and see what joyeous spam you've got in the past 10 minutes, that and get Limewire going on the next episode of which ever prog you fancy (if it appears in the bloody search list and with the right episode number!).

But then the time ticks on, you know that in a few minutes you'll have to pick up the phone again, leave some more poxy voicemail (why don't we just call them messages anymore?) and look for someone else to allow you to jabber into their electronic voice mailbox for fun. Bastards.

Although, maybe you have someone actually booked in to talk to, maybe they'll actually be there, maybe you'll talk to the person you actually need to, and then maybe they won't shoot you down with their verbal ground to air missiles, distributing their dismissive flak in your general direction.

Maybe you're far too attacked to the grubby looking hole punch you rescued from the cupboard on your return after the break, but hell at least you've got your nice big desk back by the window, even if it gets covered in kit every couple of days.

Went to the Doc's earlier today, couple of things I needed to get checked out, my ears being one of them, basically (and I already knew this) they're chock full of wax (yum!), I'm basically wanting them syringed so I can bloody well hear again, but noooo, the poxy nurse has to do it, a week Monday!! Combine that with the fact that my right ear is KILLING ME! and yay for next week.

The other thing was headaches, over the past few months at least I've been getting a fair few headaches, usually in the same place, front part of my head, behind the eyes, and at least 3 times a week if not more.

First thing I thought was to go get my eyes tested, as I spend most of my life in front of a computer and that's probably it. Went to the optician's, she said, "Yep you need glasses y'all", although I'm only just over the threshold for needing them so she didn't think that was the cause of my headaches, so she referred me to my GP. Okay.

So after a fair bit of faffing about (I missed one appointment and I still don't have my glasses), I went and saw the Doc' (if only he was Brown), had a little chat, explained, as best I could, what my headaches were like, the fact that my main concern was the loss of concentration and "fuzziness" that accompanies them, which is basically the same feeling I got when I was messed up after Dad died, so I'd really like it checked out.

After going through the questions, he basically thinks that (oh there was a blood pressure check too, it's up "but only a smidge"), they sound like tension headaches, but I'm not particularly stressed at the mo, so he's putting them down to "painkiller headaches".

At this point I mentioned that I'd seen a documentary about this some time ago involving Codine.

Yes he says, Codine is pretty bad, Ibuprofen/Neurofen (which is what I normally take for headaches) is similar, but not the worst.

So basically he believe's I'm essentially addicted to the stuff. Great. Thanks.

To be honest, he's probably right, I haven't really had a headache since I've been of work (past two weeks), which made me think that it was something to do with my eyes and VDU's, but then I've been using my Mac, I've also had chronic earache for most of the time off and have been taking....wait for it... Neurofen for that. DOH!

So NOW, I need to pick up my prescription for Beta Blockers (medicine of choice in the late 80's I believe), take it for two months, NO PAINKILLERS, then stop. And see what happens basically. Hopefully the headaches will stop and I won't be injesting far too much ibuprofen.

Although I'm gonna pick up the shit tomorrow, I'm postponing the start date for a week, cos god damn does my ear hurt and I'm not dealing with that for a week, hopefully Nurse Pam will sort that out, it'll ease off and I'll be Blockin' away.

Hopefully I'll get some glasses at some point too, although the slightly lower pay packet I'm gonna get this month ain't gonna help that one!

I just watched Brick as well, pretty good, I'll post my verdict to the "reviews" blog, but probably not until 2moro.

First run done and dusted and well, it's quite interesting as a concept, full screen, streaming video, presented in a TV like way on your computer (apparently will run on AppleTV as well)

It's a snazzy looking application, although a little choppy on my 512 Meg MacBook (oh god do I need to upgrade my RAM!)

It gives you a selection of channels that you can scroll through (haven't tried my Apple Remote with it yet, but I will in a mo) such as XL Recordings, Channel Frederator, Alliance Sci-Fi and The Soccer Channel... just like Sky then?... um.... well no, but that's what they're aiming for eventually and they'll probably get there if they get the right hardware support, eg: a set top box (a-la Apple TV, but I can't see Apple going for it somehow), bear in mind the guys who made this founded Kazaa and more importantly Skype.

I think it's main stumbling point is currently content (from what i've seen so far), but at the same time they've immediatly got a good cross-genre selection; sport, entertainment, music, shorts. As far as I understand it, it's advertising supported, just like normal telly (except BBC and movie channels etc), I've seen one advert so far for Vodafone, and it looked like a foreign ad at that, so not sure how well that's going for them, but you have to remember this is only second phase of their public Beta.

It's main attack apart from steaming video is the "TV 2.0" aspect, basically Social Telly, the ability to see who else is watching the programme you are and have a chat, rate the programmes and all that jazz, kinda like YouTube but without being stuck in a window.

I think content wise, they could do with hooking up with Revision3 and CurrentTV as well as some of the other podcast producers out there, as well as trying to get the traditional broadcasters to sign on.

So... although the current crop of content leaves much to be desired, saying that there IS Total Recall 2070 ooooh. :/

Well Apple have relesed their 8 core MacPro (that's 8x 3GHz) and today is highlighting my need for one, as my 800MHz PowerMac (which I love and am eternally grateful to Rich for!) took 20 minutes to render a 15 second preview in LiveType and is wanting around an hour to render a 35 second livetype file in FCP.

A realistic £3,517 will get me a nice MacPro base unit, alternatively any kind souls wishing to purchase for me, the £8,222 model I've just specced out is quite welcome to. :D